It's happened to all of us at some point. You're minding your own business and you get a notification on your phone that some person you barely know tagged you in a post on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. 

You launch the relevant app and go look for the tag only to discover that you are indeed tagged, but you're tagged along with two hundred other people. 

This practice must stop and here's why:

Taking shortcuts on building relationships never works.   

We've discussed this before, but it must be said again. There are many things you can use shortcuts for, but building human relationships is not one of them. 

The words social media is somewhat of a paradox. Media implies broadcast, one way. Social implies two way. Well, most people focus on the media part and conveniently ignore the social part. 

Social media is not a glorified sales platform, nor is it meant to be used as a spam machine. If you want to get on someone's radar, you can tag them but nothing says "You're not special" better than tagging someone along with many other people  

It just doesn't work. 

utting aside the psychological ramifications of mass tagging, forget how it makes someone feel, it simply doesn't work. 

I can only speak for myself here but when I get tagged alongside many other people on a post, I either just ignore it or if the post is highly irrelevant to me and the person only tagged me and all those other people basically to spam us, I will usually unfriend them. 

Again, only speaking for myself here, but I can't imagine a scenario in which someone is tagged in a LinkedIn comment alongside fifty other people and they say to themselves "Wow, so nice of them. They must really value my opinion". 

It is Lazy and Lazy Doesn't Work in this World.

You know, I get the question often, "Hillel, is there a product that lets me write a post and distribute it everywhere, on all platforms, in one click?"

The answer is yes, there are products like that and guess what? You should never use them. Each platform is different, has its unique culture, and format. Not to mention that there are probably people who follow you in more than one place. 

I get it, you want to save time. There are other ways to do that, but being too lazy to maintain each platform independently is a bad idea. The same goes for mass tagging. 

Presumably you want to get the attention of the people you are tagging but don't do it all at once. Either message the person privately that you wanted them to know about the article you posted, or if it's on Twitter, you can send them a reply with the link. 

However you decide to do it, ask yourself if you're being lazy or having the audience in mind when doing anything on social media. 

Always Pay Attention to the Terms of Service. 

Each platform has its own rules but there are some behaviors that are frowned upon and in some cases, deemed spam. If you spam on social media, you are eventually going to get banned.

There is a reason that spam is prohibited on these platforms and mass tagging people on your posts over and over is most definitely a form of spam. 

Now don't get me wrong, tagging a lot of people is not the equivalent of real spam trying to sell you some fictitious product, but it is most definitely bad practice that is walking a thin line between legitimate content and spam. 

I'd stay far away from that line if I were you.